Sydney’s New Marathon Medal Counts Eight Majors. The Series May Be Headed to Nine.

The Sydney Marathon revealed its 2026 finisher medal on its Instagram account on Monday, and the reverse carries eight small circles above a relief of the city skyline, one circle for each race in the World Marathon Majors. Eight became the correct count only in June, and a ninth race is already under evaluation.

Series sponsor Abbott announced on June 10 that the Cape Town Marathon had finished its candidacy and become the eighth race in the series, the first on the African continent, with the provisional stars given to finishers of its May 24 edition converting to full ones. Before that there were seven, a count Sydney itself created when it was admitted in 2025. This is the first Sydney medal designed for an eight-race series, and it arrives while a ninth is under review.

The Shanghai Marathon is one assessment away. It cleared the first stage of its candidacy at its November 2025 race and faces the second at its next edition, on Dec. 6. If it passes, the series reaches nine in 2027, and the circles on Sydney’s medal will describe an arrangement that held for a little over three months.

No award corresponds to eight races, either. Abbott’s June announcement pointed past the current count to a Nine Star medal for runners who complete the full expanded series, and the series’ own Six Star page still explains the award in terms of the original six races, in Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York City. Sydney’s medal therefore marks a count with no star attached to it.

What Is on the Medal

The face is gold with blue enamel, built out of concentric rings of dot work around a raised center. Set into the outer rim is a ring of small markings that organizers say stand for the course’s individual kilometers. The reverse holds the eight circles, the year, and a low relief of the skyline, with the Opera House, where the race finishes, at one end and the Harbour Bridge, crossed in the opening miles, at the other. The ribbon is navy, printed with the same dot motif, and reads FINISHER in white. Organizers described the center of the design as “a meeting place and symbol of connection, community and Country.”

The Artist Who Drew It

Ambrose Killian is an Arrernte and Western Bundjalung man, born in Darwin and based in Brisbane since late 1999, who works as an artist, educator and cultural consultant, and whose commissions include school murals and apparel. He is also an endurance athlete, and in an interview with the triathlon apparel company WYN Republic he has described his art and his training in the same terms. “Motivation to start a new painting is very similar to motivation to start training,” he said. “Sport, movement, the community of sport has a huge impact on my artwork.” The race’s announcement described him as a First Nations artist and did not mention that he races.

The medal will be produced in larger numbers than any Sydney medal before it. The 2025 race, the city’s first as a Major, finished 32,963 runners from 117 countries, and organizers have said they are building toward 40,000 finishers this year. The ballot drew more than 123,000 applications, a 56 percent increase on the year before, and the race says its next general ballot opens in September. What the series will look like by then is being settled elsewhere: Cape Town’s arrival reshaped the geography of the Majors, and Sydney’s own route into the series took three years of assessment.

The race starts on Miller Street in North Sydney on Aug. 30 and finishes at the Opera House, with about 313 meters of climbing in between. Shanghai holds its own decisive edition on Dec. 6, three months after Sydney’s finishers collect a medal with eight circles on the back.